We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Friday, August 11. 2017

Hi everybody. It's Friday. Light the smoking lamp early. Run the cocktail flag up the mizzen before you're under sail. It's noontime somewhere. Bust out the tonsil polish while the sun rides high. Bunk off. Take a mental health day. Slack. Don't kill the job. Make up your mind to procrastinate. Indole.

The right calls the kind of people who went after Damore by the derogative term “Social Justice Warriors” (SJWs). SJWs hold progressive views on diversity and identify politics and, supposedly, find virtue in harming those with heretical beliefs. Many on the right fear SJWs.

If you've always wondered what a conservative is, and you work in hi-tech, the nice man will tell you in fourth-grade syntax about this rare but terrifying animal.

[Beethoven’s] talent amazed me. However, unfortunately, he is an utterly untamed personality, who is not altogether in the wrong if he finds the world detestable, but he thereby does not make it more enjoyable either for himself or others.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are all retooling their businesses around the belief that AI and machine learning are the future of the tech industry. IBM is in a more vulnerable position than all those companies. Even though IBM was an AI pioneer it has let its lead slip and damaged its reputation with overhyped marketing. There’s a rising sentiment in from tech and finance experts that, for all the idealism, Watson just can’t deliver on its promises.

IBM should get with the times and appoint a female CEO to straighten out this mess. Oh.

Two airlines have dipped their wings into the waters of two-way texting. Hawaiian Holdings Inc.’s Hawaiian Airlines is adding the feature while JetBlue Airways Corp. took a stake in a software startup that will allow its call center staff to start texting customers in the coming months.

Listen, iPhone drones. There's only one way to tell your airline you hate it. It has a steering wheel.

Bestiary texts offer animal-lore as a source of allegorical lessons for moral spiritual guidance. The earliest bestiary manuscripts date to the beginning of the 12th century. They were made throughout North-Western Europe, but the genre flourished most in England, eventually declining in popularity in the late 13th and 14th centuries.

I and Pangur Ban my cat, 'tis a like task we are at; hunting mice is his delight, hunting words I sit all night...

Much of the software that processes the trans­actions is decades old, and the more modern bits are written by banks, credit card companies, and financial middlemen, none of whom are exactly winning hackathons for elegant coding. In 2010, Patrick and John Collison, brothers from rural Ireland, began to debug this process. Their company, Stripe Inc., built software that businesses could plug into websites and apps to instantly connect with credit card and banking systems and receive payments.

An Irishman, late for an appointment, prays, "Lord, if you give me a parking space, I'll give up Guinness and go to Mass every Sunday." A parking space immediately opens up. The Irishman sticks his head out the window, looks up, and says, "Never mind, I found one."

Of nearly 230 North American chemical, metals and mining, paper, forest products and packaging companies, nearly a quarter are within two notches of the investment-grade/speculative-grade border as of mid-year, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to panic. Donovan writes that the sector should remains strong at least through 2018m, and he doesn’t expect any “crossings’ before 2019.

In May, the expectation was that between 40 to 60 restaurants would be shuttered in fiscal 2017. No list of the affected locations has been released. Applebee’s says the expected closures will be based on several criteria, including franchisee profitability, operational results and meeting brand quality standards.

As long as Flinger's and Chotchkie's stay open, I don't care. You want to come over and watch Kung Fu?

The declaration could help unlock more support and resources to address the drug overdose epidemic, such as additional funding and expanded access to various forms of treatment, and it gives the government more flexibility in waiving rules and restrictions to expedite action.

The man - who has not been identified - was found dead around 11am when police finally stormed the home. His death ended an hours long standoff that started late Wednesday, when he showed up drunk at the 9,000-square-foot home where his estranged girlfriend lives and the two got into a fight.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen told lawmakers last month that "some special factors" were partly responsible for the low inflation readings. Inflation, which has remained below the U.S. central bank's 2 percent target for five years, is being watched for clues on the timing of the next interest rate increase.

On inflation I am seeing dramatic prices increases on just about everything. I have seen this trend over the last few years and it seems to be much worse now. That the official inflation stats haven't increased much says more about what they measure and why than it does about actual inflation.

Clothes and shoes have gotten incredibly cheap. Construction lumber is crazy high, as is coffee. Random choices, but it clearly makes a big difference what commodities you track. I hope I may be forgiven for suspecting that the government's choices aren't neutral; their thumb is always on the scale one way or another, for our own good, of course.

Re: the opiod epidemic. There are somethings that are being ignored in this discussion. According to less hyped news it isn't the prescribed opiods that are killing people but tainted drugs with extremely powerful fentanyl. These are black market drugs not the prescribed oxycodone and hydrocodone based drugs. The second point is that it is implied that innocent patient is being addicted by careless doctors. I believe that if these prescribed pain killing drugs are taken as prescribed that they are not generally addictive. But rather the addict choose to crush up the slow release drugs and/or take multiple dosages at a time to achieve the desired effect.

I am not saying that these drugs are not dangerous, they can be that is why they should be taken as prescribed. I am also not saying that they are not over prescribed because I suspect that they are, especially Vicodin. My point is that it appears the attack is intentionally aimed at the wrong place and coincidently at the deep pockets. I suspect this is more about trail lawyers prepping the potential juries for big money verdicts against the pharmaceuticals and has zippo to do with saving lives.

The "opioid epidemic" is a symptom. Underlying it is the economic collapse of 2007-8 and the resulting feelings of hopelessness for most of America during the Obama years, with no jobs, no economic activity and no future. Much of the country has seen factories and employers all go out of business, Main Street and Malls abandoned, poverty increase, health care availability, health and life expectancy all decline, and America turn into a third-world country. A lot like what happened in Russia when the Soviet Union and its economy collapsed, although there the drug of choice was vodka.

A group of middle-aged whites in the U.S. is dying at a startling rate

Death rates rose for white men, white women and black men. They stayed essentially even for black women and Hispanic men and women. “It’s just confirming this deterioration in survival for certain groups,” said Ellen Meara, a professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. She wonders what factors might be protecting Hispanic men and women from the negative trend.

From the article: "Experts cautioned against interpreting too much from a single year of data"

I read the article and it seemed a little disjointed, talking about heart disease and cancer then drugs, alcohol and suicide and all of it based on a tiny one year change. I'm not sure there is any "there" there.

Yep. How often do you hear of failed government programs being shut down rather than their failure being used as an argument that they need more staffing and funding? Compare the number of failed private enterprises - doesn't it seem odd that so many well-intentioned, well-thought out business plans developed by enthusiastic business people given every incentive to succeed and every disincentive to fail still wind up failing and bankrupt and yet government enterprises without all these strictures seem to have about a 100% success rate, i.e., they're all still in business some number of years down the road?

(Now that I think of it, it's no wonder some people think socialism would be great way to go - the government has rarely if ever had a business failure and private enterprise has had tons of huge ones. Heck, some government programs like the wool and mohair subsidy program are so wildly successful they're still in business 50 years after their customer base has disappeared! Let's see private enterprise match that.)

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